


frohe weihnachten

by erebones, losebetter



Series: Gay Dads [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, Holidays, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones, https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/pseuds/losebetter
Summary: It's Winternight at the Widogast household! Some fluffy holiday cheer for Christmas Eve. <3





	frohe weihnachten

**Author's Note:**

> Van is back, and cuter than ever! Someday we'll think of a proper name for this series....

Fjord snaps awake in the middle of the night and he doesn’t know why. He lays flat on his back, feeling the heat of Caleb’s knobbly spine curled close against his side, and watches moonshadow flicker across the ceiling as he tries to discern what woke him. Muscle memory tells him _enemy, attack, ready yourself_ —but outside is quiet, edged with the distant sigh of the waves rushing up onto the wintry beach. The house itself is silent.

_Creeeaak._ The door, left slightly ajar to allow Frumpkin in and out, pushes inward on its hinges. Fjord sits up, careful not to disturb his sleeping husband. Twin points of pale blue peek at him through the crack in the door and blink. Fjord smiles.

“Hey, sweetpea,” he whispers. “Can’t sleep?”

Given tacit permission, Van pushes into the room and tiptoes around to Fjord’s side of the bed. The air is cool with the covers pushed off, and Fjord hefts him up and holds him against his hip as he goes to prod the glowing coals. Van, sleepy and a little bit anxious, just kicks his heels softly against Fjord’s thigh as he watches the proceedings with drooping eyelids, one fist stuffed halfway into his mouth. He’s getting heavier every day, it feels like, but Fjord holds him steady and pretends not to feel the strain in his shoulder as he picks up the poker.

_Krsshh. Kkhhksh._ The poker sifts through the coals like the scrape of nails on a chalkboard. Fjord winces and kneels down, letting the metal rod lay on the hearth and setting Van’s bare feet on the floor. His son leans hard against his chest and turns his face into Fjord’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Fjord whispers. He chafes Van’s back with one hand and teases his round little grey-green belly with the other. “What’s wrong, little love? Bad dreams?”

Van’s lower lip pokes out, framed by two small tusks. He seems to weigh the question in his mind and then shakes his head and hides again in Fjord’s chest. Fjord kisses the warm curve of his precious little head and sighs.

“It’s all right. Here, I need to go downstairs and get some matches. Wanna come with?”

“Please,” Van whispers, almost inaudibly. He lifts his arms and Fjord obliges him, sweeping him up into his arms to move out into the hall. He pauses at the threshold and looks back. Caleb is still deeply asleep, face shoved into the pillow, hand curled loose beneath his chin as his back rises and falls beneath the blankets. Fjord smiles and eases out of the room, letting the door creak slowly shut behind him.

Frumpkin materializes at the bottom of the stairs as Fjord reaches it, but scoots out of the way to let him pass with a _mrrp_ of interest. Van squirms in his arms and turns to watch the cat over Fjord’s shoulder as he fetches matches from the downstairs hearth. In the kitchen, Fjord pauses to look out over the moonlit yard. Everything is frosted in a gentle layer of white, like shaved ice sprinkled across the brittle winter grass. The night sky is clear and speckled with stars like the far-flung reaches of a diamond-studded train—the constellations stand out like sentinels in the inky sky, their ancient watch revolving with the seasons. Fjord tucks Van more firmly against his hip and leans his head against the glass, pointing out his favorites.

“See that one?” he whispers. “Above the tree? That’s the Mariner.”

“Mare-inner,” Van echoes. He blinks wide crystalline eyes and Fjord can practically hear the _shush_ of his lashes against his cheeks as he leans forward for a better view. “What’sa marner?”

“A mariner is… a seafarer. A sailor.”

“Like you!” Pleased with his deduction, Van turns and plants his hands on Fjord’s cheeks. His eyes glimmer in the dark like a cat’s, like they’ve collected starlight and are reflecting it back into the world. “Daddy, when’s it morning?”

“Morning… not for a little while, I think.” He doesn’t have Caleb’s uncanny knack for telling the time, but the heaviness of his body and the slight dry scrape at the back of his throat tells him it’s the middle of the night. Dead man’s watch, Beau used to call it. The graveyard shift that no one ever wanted to take. Fjord had ended up volunteering more often than not—he usually suffered nightmares, in those days, and if he was going to be up anyway…

He has fond memories of sitting huddled shoulder to shoulder with Caleb in the wee hours of the morning, poking the fire with a stick and trading tales as they wiled away the chill. He presses a fond smile to the curly top of Van’s head. “You think you can get back to sleep, sprout?”

Van’s lip trembles mutinously. “Wanna sleep with you. Please.” The _please_ is a bit slurred around the shape of his tusks in his mouth. His chubby little hands pat the sides of Fjord’s face until they find his ears, and he gives the pointed tips a gentle tug. “Wanna sleep with you and Papa.”

Fjord sighs. It took them a while to wean Van off sleeping between them in the night—almost the entire first year he lived with them he would often end up crawling into their bed, and neither of them begrudged it. Orc pups often sleep piled together in a mishmash of limbs and twitching ears and little snoring mouths. It was just instinct that drove Van to their room night after night, and Caleb was very accommodating, not complaining even when Fjord knew he longed for a bit of privacy with his husband.

When Van turned five they decided to start laying down the law. His age was more a guess than anything, but five was about the age little orclings began to fend more for themselves, and Van slowly learned to sleep through the night without fussing. Tonight must be an off-night. A nightmare, or just restless and growing. Fjord strokes the tip of one soft-edged ear and smiles when it twitches against his touch.

“Okay,” he says at last, when Van’s pouting lower lip becomes too much to bear. “Just this once. But we have to be quiet and gentle so we don’t wake Papa, okay?”

“‘Kay!”

Halfway up the stairs, Fjord’s sleep-added brain catches up with him and he remembers. The mistletoe hanging over the front door should have tipped him off, but he’d been distracted by Van. He sighs and presses a kiss to his son’s head. “You’re excited about tomorrow, huh little man?” he murmurs, navigating the creaky stairs as quietly as he can.

“Yisss! Winter’s Rest!”

Fjord bites back a smile. “Close enough.” He comes to the bedroom door and taps a finger against Van’s lips. “Quiet now, remember? We have to be super sneaky so we can let Papa sleep.”

Van nods with deep, exaggerated dips of his chin and puts a finger to his lips. “Very quit,” he whispers, and Fjord nudges the door open with his elbow.

At first he thinks they’ve gotten away with it—Caleb is still on his side, his back turned to the empty side of the bed that belongs to Fjord, hand still curled beneath his chin. But then he stirs and lifts his head from the pillow, smiling sleepily. “There’s my two favorite people,” he says, voice low and thicker with Zemnian than usual. He sits up in bed and holds out his arms. “Bring me my little boy, please.”

“Sorry to wake you,” Fjord says, even as he deposits Van’s not inconsiderable weight into Caleb’s lap.

“Not a worry.” Caleb kisses Van’s scrunched-up face and tucks him close, unbothered by the cling of little arms around his neck. “The cold woke me, I think, not you.” He tucks his chin against Van’s shoulder and watches as Fjord produces the matches from his pocket and goes to replenish the fire. “What are you doing awake, _Schatz_? Don’t you know _der Weihnachtsmann_ won’t come if you’re awake?”

“Who is he?” Van asks, his piping little voice carrying over the sound the flames crackling to life under Fjord’s ministrations.

“I told you the story before, _liebling_ , have you forgotten?”

“No! I mean _who_ is he.” There is a furtive pause. “Is it you, Papa? Or is it Mr. Clay?”

Caleb barks with laughter and tumbles Van to the center of the bed, tickling his soft tummy until he kicks and giggles fit to rattle the windows. Fjord rolls his eyes fondly. So much for quieting him down to sleep. “Mr. Clay? What on earth gave you that idea, silly boy?”

“He’s _so tall_ ,” Van insists, stretching his arms up toward the ceiling as if to encapsulate Caduceus’ sheer size. “And you said _der Weihnachtsmann_ has a beard!”

“A big long beard, small sprout,” Fjord puts in as he returns to bed. “Long and silver, isn’t that right?”

Caleb tips his head up for a kiss and smiles when he receives it unquestioning. “Yes, that is so. A long beard and a staff and a rich red coat made of all sort of fabrics… No, _liebling_ , it is not Mr. Clay or I.”

“Is it Mr. Father Patros?”

Fjord snorts with poorly-disguised laughter, and receives a warning look from Caleb for his trouble. “ _Nein_ , it is not Father Patros either. _Der Weihnachtsmann_ is from the Feywild—”

“Like Frumpkin!”

“Just like Frumpkin, yes.” Caleb smoothes a weathered hand down Van’s front, straightening out his rumpled nightshirt. “But he will only come to our house and leave little treats for you if you go to sleep. So. Would you like to stay with us tonight? Or shall we have your Daddy carry you to your room?”

Van stares up at them with huge, glistening eyes. “Wanna stay,” he whispers. Caleb shoots Fjord a quick look and Fjord shrugs one shoulder. _Are you going to say no to that face? I didn’t think so._

“You can stay the night,” Fjord assures him, tweaking the tip of his nose. “But only if you promise to lay still and go right to sleep, okay?”

“Okay! I will.” Van immediately shuts his eyes and begins to fake-snore. Fjord shakes his head.

“Well, I guess _der_ , uh…”

“ _Der Weihnachtsmann_.”

“Yeah, I guess he’ll be coming pretty quick after all.”

“No!” Van stage-whispers, cracking open one eye. “You gotta go to sleep too! Quick!”

“Oh, right, of course, how silly of me.” Fjord tips Caleb a wink. The answering look his husband gives him is so unbearably sweet and fond that Fjord’s chest aches. He reaches out and cups the back of Caleb’s head for a kiss. “Love you,” he mumbles against his lips, and lays back down on his side of the bed.

“ _Ich liebe dich_ ,” comes the soft reply in the crackling dimness. Caleb settles back down on his side and laughs when Van snuggles immediately beneath his arm. “Good night, my darlings.”

Fjord lays his arm across Van’s back and tucks his hand against Caleb’s other side, thumb to the little groove of his floating rib. He can feel them breathing this way, and when he shuffles forward he can smell them, a familiar blend of _home_ and _safety_ that he’s come to know well over the years. He feels Caleb’s hand settle against his forearm and smiles into the pillow, heart full.

He doesn’t think he’ll drift off right away, but sometime between one breath and the next it must happen, because suddenly he’s opening his eyes and crisp, early-morning winter daylight is streaming through the window. The fire has quieted again, but the coals are sturdy enough that the room feels warm even with the blankets rumpled around his waist. Van sleeps soundly against the pillows, thumb drifting just shy of his mouth.

Caleb is awake but lying quietly on Van’s other side, arm beneath his pillow and free hand cradling Van’s sturdy little body against his chest. His eyes, already lined with the evidence of a thousand easy smiles, crinkle when they catch Fjord’s, and he reaches up to brush a stray lock of hair from his cheek.

“Morning,” he whispers, barely audible so as not to wake Van prematurely. A quiet, peaceful six-year-old is not a gift to squander.

Fjord turns his head and captures the back of Caleb’s knuckles for a kiss. “Do you want to start the coffee or shall I?”

“Hmmm. Sweeter words than any _Frohe Weihnachten_ I’ve ever heard.” Caleb drops his hand to settle in their son’s unruly curls. “Coffee, please. I believe there’s some of the little fig-cakes left, too. We don’t want to spoil our appetites.” It's a very responsible, dignified way for Caleb to mention that he's craving sweets.

Fjord takes great pains to climb out of bed in silence, but the shifting mattress does what their whispered voices did not—Van makes a sleepy waking-up noise and peers over his shoulder with one crystal-blue eye. “Papa, did he come?” he whispers.

Caleb scritches the top of his head fondly. “Guess we’ll have to get out of bed and go see, hm?”

Van is up like a shot. He blows past Fjord for the door and his little feet pounding down the stairs seem to rattle the whole house. Fjord sighs and rests his bum on Caleb’s side of the bed. “Well, so much for a quiet morning.”

“It’s all right. We were both awake anyhow.” Caleb rubs his hand against the small of Fjord’s back and blinks up at him with a sleepy smile. “D’you think Nott snuck in and out all right last night?”

Fjord opens his mouth to respond and is cut off by the shriek of glee downstairs. “Papa! Daddy, come downstairs! There’s presents under the tree!”

“Sounds like. She’s good, I didn’t even hear her leave.”

“Shall we see what she brought, then?” With creaky movements and the groan and pop of old adventurer’s bones, Caleb sits up and stretches, baring a strip of pale skin at his waist. Fjord presses a hand flat to his chest and pushes him back down to the pillows.

“In a minute,” he says, and leans down to kiss his husband on the mouth.

“But Van—”

“He’ll be occupied for a little bit.” He slips a hand under Caleb’s nightshirt to feel the soft, hairy bristle at his stomach. The next kiss is a little damper, smudged with the coarse scrape of Caleb’s beard against his chin. When he withdraws, Caleb’s lips are bruised and blushing, and his eyes are tender. “Love you, _liebling_.”

“I love you too, _Schatz._ ” Caleb’s lips curl as he tugs Fjord’s silver hair. “I think your accent is getting better.”

“I have an excellent teacher.” One more kiss, and Fjord reluctantly pulls his hand from under Caleb’s shirt. “C’mon. I’ll go put that coffee on, and we can see what horrible monstrosity Beau found for Van this year.”

Caleb groans and covers his face. “I was too afraid to ask, so I have no idea what it is. Is it awful?”

“You’ll have to get out of bed to find ouuut,” Fjord sing-songs, ducking the half-hearted swat Caleb sends his way. He grabs his dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door and puts it on as he descends the stairs to the joyful sound of Van digging through his presents.

He remembers Van’s first Winternight very clearly. He’d still been mostly nonverbal, babbling occasionally in one language or another—in those days they’d been keen to raise him to be multilingual, but hadn’t gone about it in the best way, and they realized a few months into it that Van’s reluctance to speak came from the delay in deciding which language to use.

But what he lacked in talkativeness he made up for in hands-on affection. From the beginning Van was never reticent with them—was always running up to climb into their laps or be tossed into the air, always patting cheeks and kissing noses and, yes, crawling into bed with them in the wee hours of the morning. Much like last night, Van had been sleeping in their bed when his first Winternight with them rolled around, snuggled up against Caleb’s chest with his head under his chin. Then Fjord carried him downstairs to see what mischief Nott had cooked up during the night—an arrangement that Caleb had suggested that has now become a yearly tradition—and the delight in Van’s quiet face was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

The enthusiasm has hardly changed. As soon as Fjord appears downstairs, Van is running up to him: a colorful toy carnival horse in one hand that looks unique enough at a glance to be Jester's work, and a suspiciously long, pointy package in the other. _Of course she got him a sword. Bloody impossible woman._ Fjord deflects it with a deft hand and picks him up, settling him in his lap with the pointy end facing _away_ from his body. “All right, squirt, let’s see what you’ve got.”

The stairs creak slowly as Van tears into the rest of his presents, and Caleb drifts into the room a few minutes later, bearing a tray with coffee and the promised fig cakes—a Nicodranas specialty. There is more to be done: some gifts for each other to unwrap, a room to tidy, clothes to be put on and a tree to walk through to join the rest of the family at the Nein’s estate. But for now Fjord is content to slump in the settee with Caleb under one arm, a warm drink in his hand, and their son cheerfully waving his brand-new (childproof) dagger at a hundred invisible foes in the middle of the room.

“Like father like son,” Caleb murmurs, head tucked against Fjord’s collar. “He’ll be a fearsome swordsman one day, I predict.”

“Hmmm. Not a fearsome wizard?”

Caleb huffs a dry laugh. “Perhaps. If he develops a natural inclination of course I’ll take it upon myself to teach him. But he’s a bit young for that.”

It’s a bit of a lie—Fjord knows as well as Caleb that Caleb’s first forays into magic happened around this age. But it’s a worry for later. Fjord tucks his nose into Caleb’s thinning hairline and kisses him there. “I’ll take him out into the training yard after dinner and show him a few moves, how’s that?”

“Deal.” Caleb’s hand drifts to Fjord’s lap and settles on his thigh. “I’m going to go wait for the coffee to kick in," he says, which characteristically means that he's going to go take a nap. "Come fetch me when it’s time to go?”

Fjord smiles. _Tired old men we are_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say out loud, even if it’s true. Their lives are starting to catch up with them, and Van’s boundless energy and excitement make the slowdown seem all the more dramatic. But Fjord doesn’t mind. They’ve earned their twilight years a hundredfold, and Van’s unexpected arrival is just a swathe of brightness and joy that makes Fjord reel sometimes with how lucky he is to have this.

“Wait Papa, wait, don’t go to sleep!” Van puts his shortsword down—carefully, Fjord is pleased to note, well away from any errant feet—and climbs up into Caleb’s lap where he's sloped with wry humor over being so unsubtly found out. “I have to give you my present!”

Caleb’s eyes blink open out of sheer surprise. “You got me a present?”

“Yiss! Daddy helped me wrap it!” He pulls a squarish package from behind his back and thrusts it into Caleb’s hands. Caleb runs his fingers over the haphazard seams of colorful paper and glances sideways at Fjord with a small, private smile.

“So I see. You did a very good job, _liebling_.”

“Unwrap it, unwrap it!” Van claps his hands, practically quivering with delight.

In typical neurotic fashion, Caleb peels the paper back in neat swathes, careful not to tear it. As soon as the cover of the book inside comes from his hands go still. Fjord can hear him holding his breath and for a second he fears the idea was a mistake. Then Caleb exhales in a rush and finishes unwrapping the present, thumbing through the first few pages.

“Where did you get this?” he whispers.

Fjord nudges Van’s elbow gently. “Want to tell him where you found it, bean sprout?”

“Papa, remember the traveling sale man? He was short and funny and he had a big old cart _full_ of books!” He spreads his hands as wide as they’ll go in illustration. “While you were looking for magic books Daddy and I found this! Is it _gut_? Do you like it?”

Fjord can say with utter certainty, as he watches his husband’s face, that Caleb likes it very much. The book is obviously an antique, with some water damage and a bit of weathering to the spine, but the woodcut illustrations are as stark and crisp as ever, and the Zemnian text trips merrily across the page, story after story bound up and collected in one little volume.

“I had one of these when I was about your age,” Caleb says at last, his voice a bit creaky with emotion. “I remember my own papa reading it to me at night—I begged and begged him to read to me from it even when I was old enough to read for myself.”

Van squirms in place, glancing at Fjord. “Will you read it to me, too, Papa?”

“ _Ja, Mäuschen_ , of course I will.” Caleb cups the back of Van’s head in one hand and kisses his forehead. If he blinks away some moisture at the corner of his eye as he does so, Fjord pretends not to see. “Why don’t you pick one out for us to read right now?”

Van accepts this quest eagerly, and situates himself so that he’s sitting with his back to Caleb, one leg hanging over onto Fjord’s knee as he turns through the book painstakingly. While he looks, Caleb tips his head back on the couch and turns to press a kiss to Fjord’s cheek. “ _Danke_ ,” he whispers against his skin.

“It was all his idea,” Fjord whispers back, tugging him closer with an arm around his shoulders. “ _Frohe Weihnachten,_ my love.”

Caleb smiles and settles his head on Fjord’s shoulder. “See? I told you your accent was getting better. Perhaps you’d like to do the honors…?” He gestures to the fairytale Van has chosen—something about an adventurous pair of siblings and a gingerbread house—and Fjord laughs, shaking his head.

“That’s just asking for embarrassment. How about _you_ read, and I will pay very close attention and improve myself that way.”

“Spoilsport,” Caleb murmurs, but accepts the book with grace.

Fjord tries to pay attention, he really does, casting out for the old protective instincts that used to lead him through rituals of obsessive imitation. But the rise and fall of Caleb’s voice is hypnotic, the semi-familiar language sinking like a warm drink into his belly, and it's delightfully impossible to dredge up that same sense of danger.

He turns to press a kiss to the side of Caleb’s head and his eyes catch distractedly on the view outside. Sometime in the last half-hour, the slate-grey sky has begun to shed fat white flakes of snow onto the ground. The grass it already buried under a thin layer of it, and the walkway is filmed over with pale silver frost. Inside, the sitting room is heavy with the smell of woodsmoke and evergreen, and beneath that the faint sweetness of honey and figs. The Zemnian rolls on, like poetry, like the sea. Fjord shuts his eyes and sinks into it.


End file.
